The play of the century

As the Canadians and Americans prepare to battle for Olympic supremacy in a few hours time, I felt compelled to reveal my project aspiration for me Interactive Exhibit Design Course. I have mentioned previously that it revolves around hockey, but specifically it centers on the greatest defining moment in Canadian hockey history: Paul Henderson's game winning goal in game 8 of the Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. For those who are unaware with the play itself, or the importance this goal has to Canadians there is an excellent clip provided to me by Heritage Hockey.

My project will be to recreate the final 5-10 seconds of this play on a tabletop hockey game. I cannot recreate the exact motions and movements because of the circumscribed paths of the player, but I can recreate the goal to the best of my abilities. I am going to control 4 players using an Arduino Microcontroller and the accompanying programming code. I will need to control three Canadian forwards and one USSR defencemen. The right winger will throw a pass to the centreman who will miss the shot. The defencemen and left winger will both skate by the puck as it misses the centreman as well. The left winger will then retrieve the puck, and centre it for a shot on net by the centreman which will hit the goaltender once then a rebound shot will score the historic goal. My plan in to co-ordinate as best as possible the audio call with the movements of the table top players.

In order to make this project work, I need to first identify what mechanical components I will need to operate the table top game. The second order is to learn how to control these components using an Arduino Microcontroller and the Arduino software to program them. One I have these basics, I must then experiment with the programming language and using trial and error figure out how to co-ordinate each player's movement's with the audio track. This is a very complicated attempt at mechanical programming but I am very excited to try it out! The basics we have learned in class already give me confidence that I can learn new components and languages. What better way to experiment in the digital humanities than to recreate the most defining cultural moment in our proud nation's history.